Single-leg exercises like reverse lunges, rear foot elevated split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played.  Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.

For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not transfer as much as single leg exercises when it comes to developing strength, speed and power in a sport context.  You just need to know which one to use and when.

Athletes still need to be able to squat as it is one of the most primitive patterns that the nervous system should control and master at a very young age.  You could be surprised to see how many athletes have a hard time squatting properly.  It can be because of mobility restrictions, stability or motor control problems, or other reasons, but it’s still a movement that an athlete (and any person as a matter of fact) should own.

If this isn’t textbook form….unfortunately I might lose this skill as he ages

That being said there is a strong neural relationship between single-leg strength and its carryover to sport’s performance.  And these can be used as a main lower body lifts just like a squat or a deadlift.  On top of being very beneficial in the transfer to sport’s performance, single-leg lifts can be great to reduce spinal loading (because you’re usually using less weight than double leg exercises) and to establish symmetry between both sides.  Also everything changes from double leg to single stance; more stabilizer muscles are engaged, core muscle activation is increased and the foot’s proprioception is challenged to a much greater extent.

Even if spinal loading is not as great as with regular squats, you can still get a tremendous effect out of single-leg training and gain a lot of strength.  If you’re not convinced, just check out this video of one of our hockey player at Endeavor doing Reverse Lunges with 255 pounds for 6 reps!

Even Coach Jorts  from  CoachJortsTraining.com can’t squat as much double leg! (barely 225! Pfff, those jorts don’t even make you stronger)

In all seriousness, my friend Kevin Neeld just released his Ultimate Hockey Training book last week and he goes into great details on the benefits of single-leg lifts.  Make sure you get a copy; he’s still selling it at the introductory price (less than 35$!!)

Functional training is a concept that’s becoming more and more popular these days.  Everyone has his own interpretation of what functional training is and how it is applied.  For some, it is to reproduce sport-specific movements, for others it’s to stand on unstable surfaces to do everything from core training to biceps curls, and for others it’s to develop physical qualities that are specific to the practice of their sport.

Functional? I have my doubts on this one…

No matter how you interpret functional training, there is an important line that people are crossing too often when applying exercise variations or specific tools in the gym.

Let’s face it: we all love variety.  We love to try new exercise variations, new tools (TRX, slideboards, stability balls, ropes, etc), and for a good reason; when you’ve been training for a long time (read: one year is not a long time) you might get bored doing the same stuff all the time.  But too often variety becomes what dictates your training program.  And too often at the expenses of proper form.  I think it is crucial to perfectly master the basic movement patterns before any attempt at progression and/or variety.

I’ve said in the past that form is everything when you lift.  When you lose perfect form, I truly think that whatever you do, isn’t functional anymore.  Period.  Whatever your definition of ‘functional’ is, it has to has be based around proper movement patterns.  Whatever exercises you use, whatever tools you use, there is only one optimal way your body moves and it is the same whatever you do.  It doesn’t matter if you do your push ups on the floor, with your hands on a bench or on a TRX; the movement at your shoulders and the stability you present with the rest of your body should be the same for all three of these variations.

Sorry. Not for everyone.

If you can’t master a reverse lunges with dumbbell in your hands, why would you do a reverse lunge with a bar on your shoulders or with whatever crazy unstable surface you want to use?  If you can’t do a front plak with perfect form for more than 30 seconds, why would you do it with your elbows on a stability ball?

Variety sells.  Especially when you’re a personal trainer; it’s a good way to attract new clients.  But no matter how boring the basic stuff is, it needs to be done.  And it needs to be done for as long as you’re not doing it perfectly.

Variety shouldn’t exist until you master optimal movement patterns.

You’re welcome.

Sign up for my newsletter and get 3 FREE performance training reports!!!

Lunges are a staple exercise in every single-leg training program.  Most of the time it is the first exercise we teach our athletes and clients.  It’s a basic exercise, it’s efficient and it’s functional.  But one question stands: reverse lunge or forward lunge?  Here’s a in-depth comparison of both that should give some answers.

Reverse Lunges

The reverse lunge is usually a better option for beginners.  You don’t have to decelerate your body weight as much with your front leg as you do with a forward lunge.  Instead you’re stepping back and keeping your weight on your front leg the whole time.

Your body is not traveling forward, so no deceleration, which is part of the eccentric portion of the movement (and the hardest part of the movement to control).  Because of that, the  eccentric portion (when you go down) is easier with a reverse lunge.  On the way up, you’ll need to get a big push with your front leg to push yourself straight up (think of it as being axial loading, referring to the load vectors principle).

You’ll also get a significant push off from your back foot to help propel you forward and come back up in the starting position.
Because of the axial loading (straight down) on the front leg and the big push off from the back foot, you can load a reverse lunge a lot more than you can load any other type of lunges, whether it is with dumbbells, with a front squat grip with a barbell or with a back squat grip.  It is not uncommon to see beginners go up in weights very quickly with reverse lunges once they’ve mastered the movement.  I’ve seen many kids (younger than 16) get up to 70 pounds dumbbells and with 155 pounds on the bar for reverse lunges within 3 months of training.

To recap:

• The reverse lunge is easier to learn;
• It has more of an axial loading vector;
• You can load them up more than other types of lunges.

Forward Lunges

The forward lunge is definitely more difficult to perform, and to master as well, than a reverse lunge.  By taking a step forward, you are propelling your body forward, and therefore need to decelerate this forward momentum of your body weight with your front leg from the instant the foot touches the ground and all the way down to the bottom of the movement.

That portion of the movement alone makes a forward lunge a lot more challenging than a reverse lunge.  The concentric part (the push off to return to the starting position) is also more challenging.  The loading is more postero-anterior (again, referring to the load vectors theory), which means you need to push yourself up and back to return to the starting position.

Your body actually has to travel back to its original position, and therefore you need a big push off with your front leg.  Your push off also needs to be quick and powerful if you want to generate enough force to propel your whole body back.  Because of that increased need for a quick and powerful action you won’t be able to load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge (think of it this way: the heavier the load gets, the harder it is to move it fast.  The opposite also being true; the lighter the load, the easier it is to generate force quickly).  Another factor that’s going to limit the amount of weight you can use with a forward lunge is the fact that you don’t get much help from your back leg, because you’re actually pushing back.  A very important thing to note is that because you can’t load a forward lunge as much as a reverse lunge, doesn’t mean it’s an inferior exercise.  The deceleration (or increased eccentric) part of the movement makes it a great exercise to improve decelerative abilities for athletes.  Deceleration is a HUGE part of any sport, and crucial in quick transitions and efficient change of directions (athletes need to decelerate fast, and accelerate fast in order to have optimal quickness and agility).

To recap:

• The forward lunge is a more challenging exercise than the reverse lunge to perform;
• You can’t load it as much;
• It has more of a postero-anterior loading vector;
• It has a big deceleration component to it;
• It’s really effective for athletes to train deceleration.

In conclusion, there is not one exercise better than the other one; just a more appropriate choice depending on who it is for and what you’re trying to accomplish with it.  I hope this clarified any confusion that you might have had with this exercise.

Don’t forget that I opened up only a couple of spots for my online program design services!  If you’re interested, visit my Services page to read all the details, make sure you e-mail me as fast as possible; spots are limited!

While you’re at it, don’t forget to sign up for my FREE newsletter and make sure you don’t miss out on athletic development secrets!!

The reverse lunge is one of our staple lifts at Endeavor with all of our athletes and clients as we are big advocates of single leg training.  This is one of the lower body lifts we require everyone to master as quickly as possible.  But sometimes we encounter a couple different flaws early on that we need to fix: leaning too much forward, taking too small of a step back, losing balance while stepping back, not getting a full range of motion, putting too much weight on the back leg, etc.  But these are all pretty quick fixes with a couple good coaching cues and a little practice.  One thing that I found to be harder to fix though is when people shift their weight too far forward.  That usually translates into the front knee moving too far forward and the front heel leaving the ground.

Weight shifted too far forward = Bad Form

Sometimes telling the athlete/client to keep their weight on their heel will solve the problem, sometimes not; even if you keep repeating it over and over.

One quick fix that I’ve found extremely useful lately to solve that problem is to have the athlete/client line up a couple inches behind a bench.  That way the knee can’t travel too far forward, otherwise it’ll hit the bench, so it forces them to shift their weight back a little bit and keep their heel down.

Give it a shot with athletes or clients who have a hard time keeping their heel down or if their knee has a tendency to travel too far forward.  It works really well!

For other sport training secrets, sign up for my free newsletter!

As I’ve mentionned often in the past, I’m a firm advocate for single-leg training.  I believe it is truly one of the most important part of lower body training, especially for athletes.  It’s more functional, more sport-specific and better for injury prevention purposes.  At Endeavor, we use a ton of single-leg lifts with all our athletes, and most of the time we use these single-leg lifts as our main lower body strength exercise. 

Some of you might wonder what type of exercise we’re using, because let’s face it, you can’t DB reverse lunges all the time.  So here’s a little insight to the progressions we use with our single-leg lifts.

- The DB reverse lunge is the first variation we use 99% of the time.  Dumbbells keep your center of mass low, so therefore it’s not too hard on your balance compared to other variations. 

A reverse lunge will allow you to use a good push off your back leg, so it is easier for athletes and clients who don’t have a lot of single-leg strength.  A reverse lunge is also easier than a forward lunge because you don’t have a big deceleration component on your front leg like you have with a forward lunge.  This deceleration component makes it much harder to keep a proper upper body posture throughout your set.

- The second one on our progression list is still a reverse lunge, but in which we will change the center of mass by using a back squat grip or a front squat grip with a barbell.  Since the load is much higher, the center of mass moves up and it makes it harder to maintain your balance. 

Another variation we use to make it harder by moving the center of mass higher is to use dumbbells overhead.  This is a variation we will use more in conditioning circuits or to unload the joints, because the overhead position makes it very hard on the core and shoulder muscles.  So what happens most of the time is the core and shoulder muscles will be the limiting factors before you get to a weight that’s going to be heavy enough to be challenging for your lower body. 

- Third on the list would be the rear foot elevated (RFE) split squats with dumbbells (a.k.a. bulgarian split squats).  Having your back foot on a bench makes it harder to get help from your back leg compared to a lunge; so, more weight is supported on your front leg.  Some beginners don’t have the strength to do a RFE split squat; they need to do lunges for a little while to get their strength up before they can progress to a RFE split squat.

- Then, of course, you can progress the RFE split squat with dumbbells to a RFE split squat with a back squat grip or a front squat grip with a barbell.  Once again the center of mass is shifted higher, so it makes the exercise more difficult.

- Once you’ve mastered the reverse lunges and RFE split squat variations, you can progress to a slideboard reverse lunge.  Don’t let the name fool you, because it is much harder than any other lunging variation.  The reason is that because of the nature of the slideboard (slippery…duh!), you can’t really use your back leg to help you much; putting more weight on the back leg would make your foot slide away from your body and dangerous things could happen.  Just keep in mind that you have very little support from your back leg and you’re using mostly your front leg to pull yourself up, so you need a decent amount of single-leg strength before you try it.

- Last on the list is the single-leg squat and its variations.  The main reason why it’s the hardest one is because the leg you’re not using is totally unsopported, therefore it can’t help you at all.  You need very good single-leg strength in order to do this one; especially when you perform it with a full range of motion. 

All in all, this might not be the exact same progression we use with 100% of our client because there is many factors to consider when building a program; how old is the client? how much lifting experience does he have? how strong is he? does he have any restriction or injury? etc.  All these factors will dictate the progressions we’ll use with everyone of our athlete.  Also keep in mind that there are many other ways to progress single-leg lifts and make them more challenging, but this is a basic progression that should give you a pretty good idea on where to start and how to progress athletes and clients from there.

I mentioned in a previous post that single exercises like reverse lunges, back leg raised split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played.  Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.

For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not be as useful as single leg exercises when it comes to transferring strength gains to your sport.  You just need to know which one to use and when.

For many years I have been a big fan of single leg exercises as they help develop strength and balance in the knee extensors (quadriceps), hip extensors (glute maximus and hamstrings) as well as hip abductors (glute medius) and hip adductors (adductor magnus, longus and brevis) all at the same time.  But I have to say that I have always been hesitant to use single leg exercises as a main lower body lift in the past because I always thought that you could load 2-leg exercises like the squat a lot more than you could with single leg exercises.  And more loads also equals better strength gains….Well that’s what I thought a couple months ago….Not anymore.

With all the athletes we’ve seen at Endeavor this summer, I am now convinced that you don’t NEED 2-leg exercises to significantly load a lower body exercise and see great strength gains.

We’ve had numerous hockey players use over 225 pounds for a barbell reverse lunge with a front squat grip, a couple of them going up to around 265!  These guys were D-1 College players or Junior League players around 18-19 years old. 

Here is Endeavor athlete Charlie Vasaturo, 19 years old, doing reverse lunges with a front squat grip with 255 for 6 reps:

This is also not uncommon to have younger kids(around 14) do dumbbell reverse lunges with over 50 pounds in each hand.

Here is a video of an other Endeavor athlete, Conor Landrigan, 14 years old, who started training with us about 6 months ago and had pretty much no lifting experience before that.  Here he is doing a dumbbell reverse lunge for 6 reps with 65 pounds in each hand:

The fact is that once you get used to the movement pattern of a single leg exercise, you can load them up almost as much as you can with 2-leg exercises like squats(in fact, we have our athletes front squat as well and their number are not that much higher than they are for reverse lunges and split squats). 

So don’t be affraid to use a single leg exercise as your main lower body lift, as you will be able to load them significantly, your strength gains will transfer better to your sport and you will improve your balance in a sport-specific way.